House must act on immigration reform

Published 4:11 pm, Wednesday, July 10, 2013

It was supposed to be a sure thing. Everyone has an interest in comprehensive immigration reform. The federal system is by all accounts broken, and the time is right to make long-overdue changes.

It has been a centerpiece of President Obama's second-term agenda, but immigration reform was supposed to be dear to Republicans' hearts, as well. It is not lost on anyone that the country's demographics are rapidly changing, and that the fastest-growing segments of the population are leaning decidedly Democratic. The long-term viability of the Republican Party on a national level would hinge, to some degree, on softening its image in the eyes of the Hispanic population, which has as vested an interest as anyone in better, fairer immigration laws.

All that theorizing has run into a buzz saw in the form of the House Republican caucus. Members of that increasingly radical collection of lawmakers don't see the benefits of changing the laws, and to a large degree want to play into their constituents' worst impulses. What was passed by a bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate, and would be signed if it were to reach the president's desk, is on life support in the House.

And the reasons don't make much sense. House Republicans are insisting that immigration reform can't be passed until the U.S.-Mexican border has been all but sealed. This sets an impossible standard and, more importantly, ignores the reality that a common-sense immigration policy will be the best thing we could do to halt the flow of undocumented workers.

It also misses the point that much illegal immigration comes from people overstaying a visa, not being smuggled over the border.

And it ignores another reality -- the flow of illegal immigration has been steadily decreasing for years now, which is what you would expect to see with a struggling economy.

But none of that seems to matter. The reality is that undocumented immigrants are here, in every state, and wishing them away doesn't help anyone. Nor would some kind of expensive, punitive crackdown solve anything. Reform of the type passed by the Senate, that provides a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants -- an arduous path, for certain, but a chance nonetheless to come out of the shadows -- is the best way forward.

House Republicans will at some point realize they are in office to govern, and not simply to fight the president. The sooner that happens the better off everyone will be -- including House Republicans.